The DGB – Emerging Artist Spotlight NXNE 2013 Edition

June 12 2013 – North By Northeast (NXNE) is here and we are excited! NXNE may not be as well known as SXSW in Austin Texas but for us rock lovers in Toronto this festival satiates our musical hunger. We love discovering bands and take the opportunity of NXNE to find out more about some of them.

In 2012, T-Mak World initiated extensive coverage of NXNE and we saw a total of 51 bands/artists and interviewed the following 15 bands as part of our Emerging Artist Spotlight series:

Our wrap up article from 2012 is here and we are excited to be back in 2013 and to interview more bands to our Emerging Artist Spotlight Series. Today we focus on a band from Toronto, Canada and their NXNE profile reads:

The DGB is proud to be part of a great new generation of rock bands coming out of Canada. They bring a unique blend of music to this scene – the drive and energy of 70’s garage bands like The Stooges, with catchy melodies and the modern folk rock storytelling style of the Weakerthans and Joel Plaskett. Call it what you want, but we call it high energy Rock & Roll!

Hailing from the far Eastern edge of the GTA and beyond, the DGB never stays home too long. Over the last few years, the band has been extensively touring in Canada, heavily concentrating on the Montreal-Toronto circuit, and traveling to the far tips of the East and West coasts of the country. 2011 marked the release of the group’s most recent record, “the Greatest Life Unknown”, and their largest tour to date, spanning 4 months.

Never going stale, the band has most recently added “Cassie Noble” to the mix. She adds diversity to the songwriting, a female voice to the music, and is a multi-instrumentalist. The band is working on an extensive list of new tracks for an upcoming record, and still rocking the live circuit as much as possible. Long Live Rock & Roll!

 Here is what they had to say to us:

• Hey The DGB, thanks for taking the time out to talk to us. Let’s start off with the obligatory introductions. Who’s in the band and what instrument does everyone rock?

BANDNAME:  We’re kinda like a hockey team with two netminders. Steve Jackett and Jamie Robinson handle the duties of the drums and it’s always a surprise which one starts the gig. Cassie Noble, Jon Greer, and myself (Daniel Greer) front the project, all handling some the lead vocals and switching between guitar and bass and other knick knacks.

• How about the history of the band, when did you get started and how did it happen?

BANDNAME: It all started in the small town of Lindsay, Ontario as an acoustic project of myself and my brother Jon. That was 12 years ago now, we were 13 and 16 when we started this. Over the years it ballooned into this super high energy rock project. After ample drummer and bass player changes we settled on our current line-up about 6 years ago and with the recent addition of Cassie a totally new sound is beginning to shape again.

• Who are some of your musical influences?

BANDNAME: The Velvet Underground, Jack White, Joel Plaskett, The Stooges, Neil Young, The Arcade Fire, C’Mon, Sloan, Nirvana, Led Zeppelin, The Doors, Sonic Youth, Matthew Good, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Robert Johnson, Johnny Cash, The Band, The Clash, Maximum RnR, The Weakerthans

• Congratulations on being selected to play at North By Northeast, what does the opportunity mean to you?

BANDNAME: It’s such a huge event and so much fun when you take full advantage of everything that’s happening. I love spending the whole week downtown meeting people, catching shows, putting on a tie, shaking hands. It’s great to be included in the magic!

• When and where is your NXNE gig? And more importantly, why do you suggest a music fan come and see your show instead of all the other choices available to them at that time?

BANDNAME: Sunday night @ 1am, Rancho Relaxo. Our ongoing gag is we are headlining the whole festival! I would suggest the whole event that evening at Rancho because after a hard week of show hoping it’s nice to settle in one venue on the Sunday and hang with friends. It’s a lot of locals and all bands we’re friends with so it’s gonna be a super fun and friendly show. I can also promise the DGB will be the boost of energy you need the last night of the fest at 1am!

• What’s it like being on stage? Do you get nervous or are you thriving on the adrenaline (or somewhere in between)?

BANDNAME: With 100’s of shows under our belt nervousness is long behind us. We love being on stage and definitely thrive when the crowd is partying and the room is full of adrenaline. Since we’ve added Cassie to the band I have to assume that maybe she gets a little nervous sometimes, but I really can’t say that for a fact.

• What does 2013 hold for you?

BANDNAME: We’ve got a huge year coming up actually. We’ve got some festival shows in Ontario, we’re doing an East Coast Tour in August, and we’re going to be working on a new record to be released in early 2014l We’re also having a contest to choose a new acronym for DGB. People won’t accept the answer “The DGB Don’t Stand For Nothing!” so we’re gonna give listeners the chance to make those 3 letters really mean something.

• Imagine that you were asked to be the opener for any band’s world tour (both current and historical). Which past band’s tour and which current tour would be your dream opening gigs?

BANDNAME: Oh wow. That’s such a hard question but I’m gonna say the Who in the 70’s. They were such a high-energy band I think they’re audience would have been a blast to play for!

• How important is the performer/audience connection for you? Can you rock a show as hard for 10 people as if you could playing an 80,000 person festival?

BANDNAME: Quality not quantity! Some of my favorite shows have been super small shows where the crowd is super charged and enjoying themselves. Rancho Relaxo always has a good energy in the room so for this showcase no matter how many are in the room, I know we are going to be surrounded by friends and positive vibes. We can usually bring any room alive and that comes from going into every show with a positive attitude and the intention to entertain and impress no matter what.

• Where can people get your music/CD, is it being sold anywhere? 

BANDNAME: http://www.theDGB.bandcamp.com is the best spot

• At the end of 2012 we published our picks for top 10 albums of 2012. Lists like those are always a reflection of personal tastes so if you were making the list what are some albums you would you have had on it?

BANDNAME: This can be a hot topic with the band because we all have different tastes in music. We all agree that Joel Plaskett’s “Scrappy Happiness” is probably our favorite of last year, and we all love “Celebration Rock” from the Japandroids and “My Father and the Hunter” from the Strumbellas. Some of my favorite records of last year and into this year have been the newest albums from Mother Mother, Timbre Timbre, The Lumineers, and Gary Clarke Jr. To steal a couple records from your list I also love the Alabama Shakes record and the Led Zep “Celebration Day” performance was phenomenal.

• Any closing remarks for our readers?

If you are new to the DGB or haven’t seen us in a while we would love to share one of our new tracks with you. Our good friend Peter Miller put together a film of a full live performance we did at the Horseshoe recently and we included a couple brand new tracks in that. The song “Atlantic Ocean” is becoming a huge favorite. There are links to everything from http://www.theDGB.ca and you can check out the embedded video for that tune. Gonna be a great week!

Thanks so much to The DGB. We hope that you can see them live.

The band’s website is here and as you would expect they are on Twitter and Facebook. In the meantime check out their video below from YouTube.